What is Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare?

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is an extensive and varied branch of computer science that is designed to simulate the various tasks typically performed by humans. These “smart machines” as they are commonly referred to, have the ability to conduct everything from problem solving and decision making to aiding in surgical procedures and reducing healthcare costs.

In healthcare, the capabilities of AI extend beyond simple, rational tasks. In recent years, AI has been utilized in the healthcare industry to leverage massive amounts of data in order to identify patterns – both in regards to disease and revenue potential, provide data-driven clinical decision support (CDS), and provide programmed insights for healthcare providers.

With the amount of valuable data around the world left completely unorganized, AI offers the healthcare industry the one thing humans simply can’t keep up with: automation. Keep reading to learn how AI is continuing to transform the healthcare industry and how you can optimize your data with next-gen engineering.

How is AI Used in Healthcare?

AI promotes two different, but equally important types of analytic medicine within healthcare: preventative and treatment care.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), “Integration of AI technology in cancer care could improve the accuracy and speed of diagnosis, aid clinical decision-making, and lead to better health outcomes. AI-guided clinical care has the potential to play an important role in reducing health disparities, particularly in low-resource settings.”

AI can now detect identifiable patterns leveraged from previously inaccessible data to create new treatment plans, drug options, and surgical innovations for patients. One example of the impact AI has had in both prevention and treatment care for the healthcare industry can be found in Google Cloud’s Healthcare app, a smart solution that has made it easier for healthcare organizations to access, collect, and store data.

An MIT team, using their own deep learning algorithm, can now also detect and screen for early-stage melanoma, a type of skin cancer responsible for the deaths of more than 70% of people, worldwide.

Benefits of AI in Healthcare

Patient Satisfaction with Enhanced Care

With early detection comes enhanced patient care. As AI can competently sort through and analyze large data sets, organizing insights and creating predictive analytics have quickly changed the healthcare ecosystem for the better – for patients and organizations alike.

Smaller and more common smart technology like smart watches can provide daily insights to patient information in order to alert professionals to any potential health issues that even patients might not be aware of. This type of simplistic health software integration works to ease the workload of clinicians as unnecessary hospital visits are significantly reduced.

Safer Surgeries with AI Assistance

Surgical robotics applications have, in recent years, become one of the most innovative uses for AI in the healthcare industry. With the increased need for a reduction in wait times, precision movements during surgical operations, and a minimized risk in complications and side effects, AI robotics was born.

AI-guided surgical system robotics can aid not only executing tiny, precise movements, but also with providing real-time information about the condition of a patient. These insights, guided by AI, help clinical professionals with pre, during, and post-operational tasks to ensure the safest and most precise results.

Computer Vision Diagnosis

As AI-powered healthcare software can diagnose patients in a similar fashion to actual clinicians, it can often do it at a faster rate using predictive analytics, bioinformatics, and pattern identification.

Computer Vision Mobile Platforms utilize previous diagnostic data which they then compare to previous research, diseases, side effects, or medical imaging sources to provide an initial diagnosis. With the ability to analyze and create algorithms from previously untapped data, AI-powered software has the ability to diagnose and offer treatment plans for everything from cancers and cardiac arrhythmias, to chronic diseases and severe conditions.

Reduce Costs with Advancing Resources

Improved patient care, advanced surgical assistance, and accelerated diagnosis rates are, alone, enough to make AI one of the most significant healthcare resources to ever come out of the 21st century. But, even after patient care, AI-powered software also helps to reduce significant healthcare costs associated with everyday administrative tasks, including:

• Credit and collections
• Insurance authorizations
• Record maintenance
• Patient follow ups

With the automation of the latter tasks, physicians and hospitals can spend more time and money on efficient, patient-saving work.

Proven Statistics

As AI-powered software continues to make successful changes within the healthcare industry, the demand for this valuable asset will continue to grow. From 2022 to 2030, the Global Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare market size was expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.4%, according to a market analysis report from Grand View Research.

According to a 2020 study done by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), “AI-based algorithms accurately detected 68% of COVID-19 positive cases in a dataset of twenty-five patients which were diagnosed as negative cases by care professionals. The implementation of AI/ML technologies in enhancing patient care, reducing machine downtime, and minimizing care expenses are some of the driving forces of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare market growth.”

MBX Medical Hardware Platforms

Explore more solutions in healthcare with platforms that are easily customizable to optimize the performance of your technology. MBX hardware building blocks are modular solutions for bringing to market diagnostics, imaging, patient monitoring, display systems, and more.

With more than 25 years experience in the hardware industry, MBX engineers master complex configuration challenges and optimize hardware designed to run medical technology to meet the needs of users all over the globe.

For more information on AI-solutions for your healthcare technology, contact us today!